R&D Projects

Development of Online consensus building methodology and implementation in policy process with encouraging a sense of ownership over climate change by Civic Tech

Principal Investigator

Principal Investigator: BABA Kenshi
BABA Kenshi
Professor, Faculty of Environmental Studies, Tokyo City University

Objective

  • The research project aims to establish a Civic Tech which encourages sense of ownership over climate change and future issues in local community of each actor by integrating scientific findings and open data (scientific knowledge) and the results of citizen participation monitoring (local knowledge with an accompanying reality of climate change)
  • The Civic Tech includes two technological developments of citizen participation monitoring and online deliberation and establishing community-based organization which operates them proactively on a continual basis. To draw up a local future scenario focusing on climate change collaboratively, the research project visualizes the deliberation by generating knowledge graph and future scenario graph on the online deliberation system.
  • The research project aims to make each actor accept scientific findings regarding long term risk with uncertainty such as climate change risk, to contribute to formulation process of local climate change adaptation plans and the national climate change adaptation plan, and finally to serve as a precedent example of evidence-based poly making.

Outline

Many local governments have begun to formulate climate change adaptation plans under the Climate Change Adaptation Law. However almost scientific findings such as climate change projections have not been utilized effectively in these plans at present. The reasons behind these are the perception gaps between scientists and policymakers and a lack of a sense of ownership over climate change.

This research project tries to establish a Civic Tech which includes following two systems; i) Web GIS system on which the citizen upload the climate change events found in their daily life, and ii) online deliberation system on which the citizen, stakeholders, policymakers and scientists discuss the uploaded event and scientific findings across time and space. Based on these, the project aims to develop a methodology of drawing up a local future scenario focusing on climate change and to develop a methodology of online consensus building fit into ""post-COVID-19 age.""

In addition to these, the knowledge and lessons gained in the project are expected to be referred in the formulation process of local climate change adaptation plans in Shiga and Kanagawa prefecture, and the next national climate change adaptation plan of the government.

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